Webmaster note: You will find
a varition of this letter titled "This WAR is for REAL ! (by Major General
Vernon Chong, USAF, ret.)".

"Although USAF Major
General Vernon Chong is indeed a real person, the essay was not written by him;
it was something he came across and forwarded to an acquaintance via e-mail,
thereby attaching his name to it and inadvertently causing other recipients
to erroneously assume he was its author." - Snopes.com

This was written
by a retired attorney, to his sons, May 19, 2004.

Dear Tom, Kevin,
Kirby and Ted,

As your father,
I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation.
We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college,
jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions.
I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of
my generation are left to speak to. To be sure you understand that this is not
politically flavored, I will tell you that since Franklin D. Roosevelt, who
led us through pre and WWII (1933 - 1945) up to and including our present President,
I have without exception, supported our presidents on all matters of international
conflict. This would include just naming a few in addition to President Roosevelt
- WWII: President Truman - Korean War 1950; President Kennedy Bay of Pigs (1961);
President Kennedy - Vietnam (1961); eight presidents (5 Republican & 4 Democrat)
during the cold war (1945 - 1991); President Clinton's strikes on Bosnia (1995)
and on Iraq (1998). So be sure you read this as completely non-political or
otherwise you will miss the point.

Our country is
now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we
have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII). The deadly seriousness
is greatly compounded by the fact that there are very few of us who think we
can possibly lose this war and even fewer who realize what losing really means.

First, let's examine
a few basics:

1. When did the
threat to us start?

Many will say September
11, 2001. The answer as far as the United States is concerned is 1979, 22 years
prior to September 2001, with the following attacks on us:

(Note that during
the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide).

2. Why were we
attacked?

Envy of our position,
our success, and our freedoms. The attacks happened during the administrations
of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. We cannot fault either
the Republicans or Democrats as there were no provocations by any of the presidents
or their immediate predecessors, Presidents Ford or Carter.

3. Who were the
attackers?

In each case, the
attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.

4. What is the
Muslim population of the World? 25%.

5. Isn't the Muslim
Religion peaceful?

Hopefully, but
that is really not material. There is no doubt that the predominately Christian
population of Germany was peaceful, but under the dictatorial leadership of
Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no difference. You either went along
with the administration or you were eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians
killed by the Nazis for political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests).
(see http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-a.htm )

Thus, almost the
same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis, as the six million holocaust
Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom heard of anything other than the
Jewish atrocities. Although Hitler kept the world focused on the Jews, he had
no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in his way of exterminating the Jews
or of taking over the world - German, Christian or any others.

Same with the Muslim
terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill all in the way -- their
own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else. The point here is that just
like the peaceful Germans were of no protection to anyone from the Nazis, no
matter how many peaceful Muslims there may be, they are no protection for us
from the terrorist Muslim leaders and what they are fanatically bent on doing
-- by their own pronouncements -- killing all of us "infidels." I
don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What would you do if the choice was shut up
or die?

6. So who are we
at war with?

There is no way
we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than the Muslim terrorists.
Trying to be politically correct and avoid verbalizing this conclusion can well
be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't clearly recognize and articulate
who you are fighting.

So with that background,
now to the two major questions:

1. Can we lose
this war?

2. What does losing
really mean?

If we are to win,
we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions.

We can definitely
lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound, the major reason we can lose
is that so many of us simply do not fathom the answer to the second question
- What does losing mean?

It would appear
that a great many of us think that losing the war means hanging our heads, bringing
the troops home and going on about our business, like post Vietnam. This is
as far from the truth as one can get. What losing really means is:

We would no longer
be the premier country in the world. The attacks will not subside, but rather
will steadily increase. Remember, they want us dead, not just quiet. If they
had just wanted us quiet, they would not have produced an increasing series
of attacks against us, over the past 18 years. The plan was clearly, for terrorist
to attack us, until we were neutered and submissive to them.

We would of course
have no future support from other nations, for fear of reprisals and for the
reason that they would see, we are impotent and cannot help them.

They will pick
off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will be increasingly easier
for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It doesn't matter whether it was
right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq. Spain did it because
the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and told them to withdraw the troops.
Anything else they want Spain to do will be done. Spain is finished.

The next will probably
be France. Our one hope on France is that they might see the light and realize
that if we don't win, they are finished too, in that they can't resist the Muslim
terrorists without us. However, it may already be too late for France. France
is already 20% Muslim and fading fast!

If we lose the
war, our production, income, exports and way of life will all vanish as we know
it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us, if they were threatened by
the Muslims.

If we can't stop
the Muslims, how could anyone else?

The Muslims fully
know what is riding on this war, and therefore are completely committed to winning,
at any cost. We better know it too and be likewise committed to winning at any
cost.

Why do I go on
at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until we recognize the
costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of our thoughts and efforts
into winning. And it is going to take that 100% effort to win.

So, how can we
lose the war?

Again, the answer
is simple. We can lose the war by "imploding." That is, defeating
ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their purpose, and really digging
in and lending full support to the war effort. If we are united, there is no
way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided, there is no way that we
can win!

Let me give you
a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the life and death seriousness
of this situation.

President Bush
selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation. Although all of the terrorist
attacks were committed by Muslim men between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary
Mineta refuses to allow profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing
seriously? This is war! For the duration, we are going to have to give up some
of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared
to lose some of our civil rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose
all of them permanently.

And don't worry
that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII,
and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more
since then.

Do I blame President
Bush or President Clinton before him?

No, I blame us
for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political Correctness, and
all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a clean, lawful, honorable
war. None of those words apply to war. Get them out of your head.

Some have gone
so far in their criticism of the war and/or the Administration that it almost
seems they would literally like to see us lose. I hasten to add that this isn't
because they are disloyal. It is because they just don't recognize what losing
means. Nevertheless, that conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we
are divided and weakening. It concerns our friends, and it does great damage
to our cause.

And just a few
years ago these same type prisoners chemically killed 400,000 of their own people
for the same reason. They are also the same type enemy fighters, who recently
were burning Americans, and dragging their charred corpses through the streets
of Iraq.

And still more
recently, the same type enemy that was and is providing videos to all news sources
internationally, of the beheading
of American prisoners they held.

The politicians
and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the Secretary of Defense. If
this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding of the
seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death struggle we are
in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can.

To bring our country
to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner issue makes us look like
Nero playing his fiddle asRomeburned -- totally oblivious to what is going on
in the real world. Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal
strife. Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media
people are disloyal. It simply means that they are absolutely oblivious to the
magnitude, of the situation we are in and into which the Muslim terrorists have
been pushing us, for many years.

Remember, the Muslim
terrorists stated goal is to kill all infidels! That translates into ALL non-Muslims
-- not just in theUnited States, but throughout the world.

We are the last
bastion of defense.

We have been criticized
for many years as being 'arrogant.' That charge is valid in at least one respect.
We are arrogant in that we believe that we are so good, powerful and smart,
that we can win the hearts and minds of all those who attack us, and that with
both hands tied behind our back, we can defeat anything bad in the world!

We can't!

If we don't recognize
this, our nation as we know it will not survive, and no other free country in
the world will survive if we are defeated.

And finally, name
any Muslim countries throughout the world that allow freedom of speech, freedom
of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal rights for anyone
-- let alone everyone, equal status or any status for women, or that have been
productive in one single way that contributes to the good of the world.

This has been a
long way of saying that we must be united on this war or we will be equated
in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of the Roman Empire. If, that
is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books to be written or read.

If we don't win
this war right now, keep a close eye on how the Muslims take over France in
the next 5 years or less. They will continue to increase the Muslim population
of France and continue to encroach little by little, on the established French
traditions. The French will be fighting among themselves, over what should or
should not be done, which will continue to weaken them and keep them from any
united resolve. Doesn't that sound eerily familiar?

Democracies don't
have their freedoms taken away from them by some external military force. Instead,
they give their freedoms away, politically correct piece by politically correct
piece.

And they are giving
those freedoms away to those who have shown, worldwide, that they abhor freedom
and will not apply it to you or even to themselves, once they are in power.

They have universally
shown that when they have taken over, they then start brutally killing each
other over who will be the few who control the masses. Will we ever stop hearing
from the politically correct, about the "peaceful Muslims"?

I close on a hopeful
note, by repeating what I said above. If we are united, there is no way that
we can lose. I hope now after the election, the factions in our country will
begin to focus on the critical situation we are in, and will unite to save our
country. It is your future we are talking about! Do whatever you can to preserve
it.